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The Food in the Hospital of Altopascio It was one of the functions of the hospital’s doctors to prescribe a proper diet. In the chapter XLVI of the rule, we find the food that could be served to the sick people: the diet included chicken, pork, beef, lamb, according to different seasons. In spring, nurses served fish, eggs, cereals, vegetables and legumes. Bread for the sick was made with the best part of flour, and the diet had also to be integrated by some fruit. Famous was the soup, always boiling, called il calderon di Altopascio (the cauldron of Altopascio) available day and night for the pilgrims. Here is the spring recipe:
Boil all the vegetables with the cereals, add meat broth, olive oil and salt. Giovanni Boccaccio, in the 6th day, 10th tale of the Decameron, describes Fra Cipolla’s servant, Guccio Imbratta, and his hood,… on which there was so much grease that it would have well dressed the cauldron of Altopascio…There was also a proverbial saying morir di fame ad Altopascio (To die of hunger at Altopascio) used by Nicolò Machiavelli in his comedy Clizia meaning to be stupid as it was impossibile not to find food in the hospital.Alimentation had an important role to cure the sick and it was considered a help to the body to get energies back. he doctors of Altopascio treated all kinds of illnesses, and used two types of drugs: composed and simple. A medecine was simple when it was used as nature had created it. It was composed when it was prepared with many simples and elaborated artificially. Drugs had a vegetable origin, coming from plants grown in hospital gardens, the garden of simples, but also a mineral, chemical or even animal origin. The most famous composed drug was the teriaca or triaca inherited from Greek medecine, and used as a universal antidote.
Ilaria del Carretto - Lucca (Jacopo della Quercia, 1407-1408) |
